About NZI Neue Zeitschrift für Insolvenzrecht

NZI Neue Zeitschrift für Insolvenzrecht

The NZI — Neue Zeitschrift für Insolvenz- und Sanierungsrecht — is the specialist journal for insolvency and restructuring law published by C.H. Beck in Munich. Appearing every two weeks in 22 issues a year, it covers the entire law of corporate and consumer insolvency: proceedings, avoidance actions, restructuring plans, out-of-court workouts, and the discharge of residual debt. Published since 1998 in cooperation with the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, it is now in its 29th volume and serves insolvency administrators, specialist lawyers, judges and corporate advisers with decisions, expert commentary and practice aids.

Overview

The NZI is a biweekly German-language legal journal (ISSN 1436-4778) from Verlag C.H. Beck, Munich. It appears twice a month in 22 issues per year, stapled, at a single-issue price of 38 euros in 2026 (double issues 50 euros) and an annual subscription price of 499 euros plus shipping. Every subscription includes the monthly eight-page supplement "Verbraucherinsolvenz aktuell" and the biweekly "beck-fachdienst Insolvenzrecht" by email. The journal informs its readers twice a month about the newest developments in legislation, case law and practice, drawing on the know-how of highly qualified experts. The target audience spans insolvency administrators, specialist lawyers for insolvency law, judges at the insolvency courts, corporate lawyers, auditors and academics. The journal's full title was "Neue Zeitschrift für das Recht der Insolvenz und Sanierung" until volume 17 of 2014; since then it has been the "Neue Zeitschrift für Insolvenz- und Sanierungsrecht," reflecting the field's shift from insolvency administration to restructuring and corporate rescue. The journal is available in print and through the publisher's beck-online database, including the NZI PLUS module that bundles the journal archive with the key norms.

History

The NZI was founded in 1998, just as the new German Insolvency Code (Insolvenzordnung) was about to replace the old bankruptcy and composition law — the journal and the statute grew up together, and the NZI became the running commentary on the new law's first decades. From the start it appeared every fourteen days in Munich at C.H. Beck, in cooperation with the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, the publisher's flagship weekly. The editorial leadership has been stable: the journal is published by, among others, Prof. Dr. Martin Ahrens, with the editorial office (Schriftleitung) held by Cologne lawyer Rolf Leithaus. In recent years the NZI has published occasional special supplements on current insolvency-law topics — for example in August 2019 on the EU directive on restructuring and insolvency — responding to the Europeanization of the field. The journal has tracked every major reform wave: the ESUG reform of 2012, the consumer-insolvency reforms, the StaRUG (corporate stabilization and restructuring law) of 2021, and the implementation of the SanInsKG. The 2026 volume is the 29th, and the three-month free trial subscription — six issues including the beck-fachdienst and the "InsO 4.0" special edition — remains the standard acquisition offer.

Coverage and Content

The journal's programme covers all fields of insolvency and restructuring law: insolvency proceedings, avoidance law (Anfechtungsrecht), corporate insolvency, consumer insolvency, discharge of residual debt, insolvency plan proceedings, estate insolvency, out-of-court restructuring, labour law, administration law, public and tax law, criminal law, remuneration law and international insolvency law. The working tools are the newest court decisions with annotations by leading specialists, concise contributions by renowned experts on important practice topics, current reporting on legislative and case-law developments, and effective working aids such as forms, checklists and literature references. Twice a year subscribers receive the roughly 80-page case-law overview, and monthly the eight-page "Verbraucherinsolvenz aktuell" supplement, produced in cooperation with the federal working group for debt counselling and edited by Martin Ahrens, Claudia Cymutta, Kai Henning, Ulrich Schmerbach, Guido Stephan, Heinz Vallender and Cornelia Zorn. Between issues, the biweekly beck-fachdienst Insolvenzrecht delivers by email the most current information for immediate case work: decision annotations with practice notes, access to the original decisions in full text with the relevant statutory texts, further current decisions in headnotes, summaries of interesting new journal contributions, and news on legislative projects and association statements. This three-layer system — the biweekly journal for depth, the email service for speed, the database for the archive — is the NZI's answer to the insolvency practitioner's working day, where a new Federal Court of Justice decision on avoidance actions can change the advice given to a client the same afternoon. The "Verbraucherinsolvenz aktuell" supplement serves the consumer-insolvency specialists separately: eight pages a month with a concise overview of case law and legislation in consumer insolvency and discharge proceedings, plus a topical essay in each issue, produced with the debt-counselling community's federal working group. Together the layers cover the field's two poles — the corporate restructuring with its StaRUG proceedings and insolvency plans, and the consumer insolvency with its residual-debt discharge — without forcing either readership to wade through the other's material.

Organization and Ownership

The NZI is published by Verlag C.H. Beck GmbH & Co. KG, the Munich legal publisher (Wilhelmstraße 9, 80801 Munich), in cooperation with the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift. The publisher is Prof. Dr. Martin Ahrens together with co-editors including Eberhard Braun and Georg Crezelius; the Schriftleiter is the Cologne lawyer Rolf Leithaus. The journal's commercial model is the professional subscription: the annual full subscription at 499 euros, combination subscriptions of print and online, and the beck-online NZI PLUS module that integrates the journal archive (from 1998), the NZI supplement (from 1998) and "Verbraucherinsolvenz aktuell" (from 2009) with the key cross-disciplinary norms. Advertising comes from the insolvency-services market — administrators, software providers, training institutes. The journal is sold through the publisher's beck-shop.de, through specialist retailers such as Hans Soldan in Essen and Schweitzer, and through subscription agencies. The trial subscription of three months (six issues) free, converting to a paid subscription unless cancelled, follows the Beck house standard.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is nzi-online.de, and its highlights are presented on beck-aktuell.de. The beck-online database carries the NZI PLUS module with the complete journal archive from 1998, the supplements and the key norms, making the journal's nearly three decades of insolvency-law commentary searchable in full text. The biweekly beck-fachdienst Insolvenzrecht extends the journal into the email inbox between issues. The journal is indexed in the standard library catalogues — the KIT catalogue records the online resource from 1998 with the title history from "Neue Zeitschrift für das Recht der Insolvenz und Sanierung" to the current "Neue Zeitschrift für Insolvenz- und Sanierungsrecht" — and the German Wikipedia documents its key data. Specialist booksellers such as Schweitzer present the journal with its full profile and subscription terms. In a field where the law changes with every reform wave and every landmark decision, the NZI's combination of the biweekly print journal, the email update service and the searchable database archive gives insolvency practitioners a continuous information system — from the 1998 founding issues to the current StaRUG practice. The journal's endurance mirrors the Insolvency Code's own history: launched alongside the new statute, the NZI has documented every phase of its application, from the early case law on the new avoidance provisions to the European restructuring directive's transposition. For the insolvency courts, the administrators and the specialist bar, it remains what the publisher promises: the journal that navigates its readers safely through insolvency law, twice a month, every month, in Munich and across Germany.